What's this?

This blog is a companion to http://vicworld.org, my introspective, philosophical and graphics intensive site for ontological adjustment. Here, on the other hand, I will try to deal with what most people think of as "reality."

Friday, September 16, 2016

Briefly

Deplorables
They are deplorable. They're not in a basket, though, so they can't be drowned like unwanted kittens. They're spread out across the United States, Europe, the world — less like kittens than stray cats, who breed faster than they can be domesticated. They are human beings who have been subjected to extremely rapid culture change, which creates extreme anxiety. Human beings don't like change, and they don't like other human beings who seem to be agents of that change: immigrants, racial, religious, and cultural minorities, the LGBT community. Lots of them can't even tolerate each other, but that's only human — and they're not about to change.

Native Americans
If the Dakota Access Pipeline were so safe, why was it relocated downstream from Bismark (90% white) to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation? Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the pipeline, says the project will go through. Over a thousand Native Americans have travelled to Standing Rock to stop it — but also to remind America that they are habitually shafted. The deplorables have been deploring Native Americans for several hundred years, and the result has been tragic.

Oh, Syria! (again)
Nobody really expected the latest cease-fire to come to much, and it hasn't, albeit a short vacation from the bombing certainly isn't bad. A big part of the problem is that Fateh al-Sham (formerly al-Nusra) is the strongest and best organized of the anti-Assad groups; and the other anti-Assad groups, including those supported by the USofA, depend on its cooperation. Now we want to cooperate with Russia to destroy it (along with IS), but it is so integrated with our "friends" that our "friends" are wondering just who we are supporting.